Chronicle on Cuba - June 2007

Exile Community

June 6: In South Florida, Cubans living in “el exilio” see a natural political kinship with Venezuelans who oppose President Hugo Chávez, albeit one separated by nearly five decades of history and circumstance. ''Few communities can find such close parallels,'' said J.C. Bermudez, a Cuban exile and mayor of Doral, a city that has become home to a thriving Venezuelan population. ``There is a lot of empathy here. We know what they're going through, because we went through it, too.'' Diane Cabrera, a 24-year-old Cuban-American activist, has worked with counterparts in Venezuela through the International Youth Committee for Democracy in Cuba. Cabrera is an administrator for Raíces de Esperanza, or Roots of Hope, a network of young Cubans, as well as the spokeswoman for Directorio Democrático, which fights for human rights and democracy in Cuba. Born in Miami to Mariel refugees, Cabrera describes herself as more politically passionate than her parents -- and especially attuned to events not just in Havana but Caracas as well. “I've always had Venezuelan friends, but now these two tyrants have brought us even closer together,'' Cabrera said. ``We exchange stories, learn from each other, so that history is not repeated.'' She added: ``But unfortunately that seems to be happening.'' (The Miami Herald, 6/6/07)

June 6: There are more than 700,000 Cubans living in Florida, with a further 300,000 scattered throughout the rest of the United States. They are a powerful expatriate community that makes a substantial economic contribution to the island, and their views on its future vary. But broadly speaking, the younger generation is more inclined toward dialogue with the Castro regime than is usually understood. "Exile has made people pragmatic, more rational, and less emotional - in short more effective," says Carlos Saladrigas, president of the Cuba Study Group, and currently the man doing the most talking on behalf of Florida's Cuban exiles. Those in Miami hoping to see Fidel Castro overthrown by a US-backed invasion tend to be those who fled the island immediately after the revolution in 1959. They still have some influence in Washington, but they are no longer the majority voice among the Cuban exile community. "Most people have a more open approach to Cuba, and are prepared to work with the island," says Ricardo Bofill, president of the Cuban Human Rights Committee, and who left the island 16 years ago.  Omar López Montenegro is typical of the Cubans in Miami who arrived as children in the 1990s, or were even born there. He arrived in 1994, and is the current head of the National Cuban American Foundation. "As the population changes, so do political perceptions," he said.   But such initiatives have been heavily criticized by figures such as Frank Calzon, who heads the Washington-based Center for a Free Cuba, a cross between a lobby and political group which stills sees diplomatic and economic pressure as the only way to establish democracy on the island. "Did anybody believe that Baby Doc would be different to Papa Doc?" asks Calzon: "So why should anybody believe that Raúl Castro will be better than Fidel?" (Herald Tribune, 6/6/07) 

June 7: Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, the 72-year-old unorthodox Cuban dissident who shocked the traditional exile community in 2003 when he abruptly decided to return to the island, was back in Miami -- but only for a family visit. He told the press that he returned to see his family in South Florida because the current US travel policy to Cuba makes it difficult for his family to visit him. ''The embargo impedes the frequent visits of relatives to Cuba,'' Gutiérrez Menoyo told the press. ``It's really due to the travel restrictions that I'm here.''  Gutiérrez Menoyo said it was his second ''lightning visit'' to Miami since the travel restrictions took effect. He stopped in Miami in July 2004 en route to Havana after a visit to his native Spain. He would not answer other questions about his life in Cuba, saying he had little time left before ending the Miami visit. (The Miami Herald, 7/6/07)

June 8: The non-profit Cuban Museum formed in 1996 broke ground for a new museum that will showcase the art and culture of Cuban Americans in a space where divas once practiced their arias, a stone's throw from Cuban Memorial Boulevard. Ofelia Tabares-Fernández, founder and president of the Cuban Museum, challenged the private sector to help create an endowment to ensure the museum's future. ''This is the culmination -- and the beginning -- of a commitment that should last, and that we are making for future generations,'' she said. The board considered the property ideal because it's one of the neighborhoods where Cuban exiles settled in the 1960s. ''It has been a long, difficult and, at times, very painful journey,'' she said. Tabares-Fernández is one of 17 board members from the now defunct Cuban Museum of Art and Culture who resigned in 1988 over the political controversy that erupted when the board's vice president -- prominent Coral Gables art dealer Ramón Cernuda -- led an auction that included work by artists with strong ties to Fidel Castro. That museum -- the target of protests and pipe bombs -- was blocks away on 12th Avenue. It closed in the late 1990s and donated its collection to the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami. The new museum's mission clearly states that it will display art and showcase artists who left Cuba after 1959. (The Miami Herald, 9/6/07)

June 15: The International Labour Organization awarded its first annual Decent Work Research Prize to Nobel peace laureate and former South African President Nelson Mandela and to the eminent academic and specialist in social security, Professor Carmelo Mesa-Lago, citing their contributions to improving the lives of people around the world. In a ceremony at the ILO’s annual International Labour Conference, Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Professor Emeritus on Economics and Latin American Studies of the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, was cited for having had, with his research, a notable impact on social security and pension reform processes in Latin America for many years. In a social policy lecture to the Conference, Professor Mesa-Lago referred to “millions of workers and peasants in Latin America who suffer from lack of coverage or poor protection against social risks” and expressed the hope that social security “coverage is substantially expanded in the next decade through a combined effort from the ILO, the International Social Security Association (ISSA) and other international organizations, as well as all countries represented in this Conference”. Created by the ILO’s International Institute for Labour Studies (IILS), the Decent Work Research Prize which draws on the endowment from the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the ILO in 1969, rewards outstanding contributions to the advancement of policy relevant knowledge on the ILO’s central goal of decent work for all. (ILO Press Release, 15/6/07)

June 21: Rudy Giuliani ardently chased the “guayabera” vote at a free event at La Carreta in Hialeah and later at a $2,300-per-person fundraiser organized by Cuban exile leaders. Giuliani called the Cuban-American community ''remarkable Americans.'' He professed his love for Cuban coffee and food. He boasted of marching in Cuban-American parades in New York City. He noted that his wife speaks Spanish. The crowd of more than 250, mostly older Cuban Americans, seemed to love it. ''We're going to be in the Cuban community a lot,'' Giuliani promised. ``I hope you don't get tired of me (…) You are one of the great examples that currently demonstrates what America is all about.'' About 15 percent of the voters in a GOP primary in Florida are Cuban American, according to Bendixen & Associates, a Miami-based polling firm that specializes on the Hispanic vote. ''The city of Hialeah is the most Republican city in the state of Florida, and any candidate vying for the Republican nomination needs to have Hialeah,'' said City Council President Esteban Bovo, co-chairman of Giuliani's Miami-Dade campaign along with County Commissioners Carlos Gimenez and Rebeca Sosa. ``I take big pride in Rudy coming here to launch his campaign in Miami-Dade. There's no doubt that any presidential candidate when they come to Miami-Dade County has to talk about the issues they talk about everywhere else, but they will also be put to the test about their policy toward Cuba.'' He vowed to maintain the embargo and travel restrictions on visiting the island, and he railed against Castro. When Castro visited New York City in 1995 for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, Giuliani, then the city's mayor, explicitly excluded him from a banquet of world leaders. ''Castro is a murderer. I know it, I will never forget it,'' he said. ``So is his brother. I know it, I will never forget it.'' Later, when he delivered his trademark message about going on the offensive against terrorists, he added: ``You understand the necessity of being strong in the face of dictators and terrorists, and Americans will be strong if I am president of the United States.'' (The Miami Herald, 22/6/07)

June 22: All of her life, Zoila Meyer believed she was an American. She even won election to the City Council of Adelanto. But now she is facing a threat of deportation to Canada for illegally voting, because she never became a citizen after being brought to this country from Cuba when she was 1 year old. "To be honest with you, I'm scared. How can they just pluck me out of my family, my kids?" the 40-year-old mother of four said in a telephone interview. "If they can do this to me, they can do it to anybody," she said. After Meyer was elected to the council in Adelanto in 2004, someone told officials that she was born in Cuba, prompting an investigation. Eventually, "the police came to me and said, 'Zoila, you're not a citizen. You're a legal resident but you're not a citizen,"' said Meyer, who now lives in the San Bernardino County desert town of Apple Valley, near Adelanto. She resigned after 10 weeks in office in Adelanto. Meyer, whose story was first reported in the Victorville Daily Press, applied to become a naturalized citizen and continued with her life: raising her children and attending two local colleges to earn degrees toward her goal of working in the justice system as a forensic nurse. However, because she was not a citizen, Meyer faced a felony charge of illegally voting in the 2004 election. (AP, 24/6/07)

June 27: Emilio Ochoa, believed to be the last remaining signer of Cuba's 1940 constitution, died in Miami, a family member said. He was 99. Ochoa, one week shy of his 100th birthday, died at his home from cardiac arrest due to old age, his son-in-law Rafael Sosa said. "He was a man who only thought about his country and fought all his life for democracy and honesty," Sosa said. "He has been in every cause for the liberty of Cuba." Born July 4, 1907, Ochoa was elected a senator in 1940 and served until 1948. In 1960, Ochoa fled Cuba but returned to the island a year later, hoping Cuba's 1940 constitution would be revived after the Bay of Pigs invasion. He left Cuba for good in the early 1960s. Ochoa lived in Venezuela, Nebraska and Illinois before coming to Miami in 1972, Sosa said. (AP, 27/6/07)

June 28: Tony de Varona, the late and legendary Cuban activist in Miami, offered to cooperate with the Central Intelligence Agency in an operation intended to kill Fidel Castro with poison pills, according to documents declassified by the CIA. A summary of the failed operation, where De Varona is identified as ''Dr. Anthony Verona, one of the principal officers in the Cuban Exile Junta,'' is part of a voluminous package of much-censored information the agency released in an unusual gesture of openness. De Varona died in 1992. (The Miami Herald, 28/6/07)

June 29: The Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS) of the University of Miami released “Aureliano” – a movie based on the life of Cuban politician, teacher and fighter Aureliano Sánchez Arango (1907-1976). Aureliano believed that the United States´ efforts to overthrow Fidel Castro were both unacceptable to Cubans and counterproductive in the Latin-American context. “Our allies have to respect, both in thoughts and actions, the complete independence of Cubans and their absolute right to lead the struggle without meddling and interference by way of relations that cannot imply any form of subordination,” wrote Sánchez Arango, who favoured the armed struggle approach to toppling Castro. (El Nuevo Herald, 29/6/07)

June 29: Exiled from Cuba after quitting Fidel Castro's Cabinet, Manolo Ray moved to Puerto Rico, led a resistance movement against Castro in the early 1960s and gradually settled into a career running an international engineering company. As his one-time mentor loosens his grip on power, Ray — Castro's first public works minister — is hoping for another chance to help his native island. "It's my homeland, and it has missed out on 50 years of progress," said the white-haired Ray, 83, who hopes to live to see the day when he can return and "help every way I can." There are 20,000 Cuban immigrants in Puerto Rico, and many long to help their native land. Puerto Rico's Cubans number far fewer — and are less hostile to Castro — than Miami's famously outspoken exile community, some 650,000-strong. Puerto Rico's Senate in March approved a measure deputizing Cubans to channel public and private aid to Cuba in the event of a democratic transition. Cuban migrants could provide capital and professional expertise to universities, businesses and other sectors accustomed to operating in a controlled economy. The proposal, developed in meetings with exile groups, also aims to seek opportunities for Puerto Rico if Cuba opens to US investment. Ray, who helped build the Havana Hilton, said from his office in colonial Old San Juan that the emigres, when they return, must be careful to avoid being seen as carpetbaggers out to make a buck — and should work to improve life on the island. “Along with development, you need to keep the poor engaged and participating," Ray said. "Without that, we won't accomplish anything." (AP, 29/6/07)